RealMac will be ditching Clear+, making Clear universal, and making it free for two 24hr periods in order to help all their existing customers migrate over. They'll also be updating Clear soon to add Reminders integration. All of this to try and clean up the pain that came from their attempt to launch Clear for iPad last year, the ridiculous reaction to it, and the mechanics of the App Store that still, almost 7 years later, don't allow for paid upgrades. Here's Dan Counsel's open letter from Real Mac:

As many of you know, late last year we released a new version of Clear. This new version called Clear+ was built for iOS 7, and a universal app for iPhone and iPad. It was also a new app, in effect a paid upgrade for our customers. Believing that this new app was the best thing for our customers - after all, a universal app was our biggest feature request - we removed the original version of Clear from the store. Shortly after the launch, it became obvious we’d made a huge mistake.

Our existing customers were understandably upset that we were no longer updating the old version of Clear, and that we wanted to charge them for an update. So after much deliberation we changed our plan: we updated the old version of Clear for iOS 7 and put it back on the store. Our sole aim was, and remains, wanting to do the right thing for users.

Since then we’ve heard from customers that they are excited to pick up Clear but uncertain which version to buy - or even worse, users mistakenly buying the iPhone version when they want the universal version.

This confusion and uncertainty isn’t what we want you, our customers, to experience and we’re making an important change that makes things (if you’ll pardon the pun) clearer.

If you're an existing Clear+ customer, go read the rest to find out how it all works, and how to get alerted when your 24hr free migration windows go live, then come back here and let me know - what do you think?

Reader comments

I think realmac did the right thing with removing the original Clear once Clear+ made it's appearance (wasn't the + version introduced at an introductory price to help with the migration to the universal app?). It seems to me that maybe they were coaxed into backpedaling because some folks thought that paying for another app was too much. I didn't have a problem with this at all and was happy to support the devs because I use Clear all the time.

I wish I was "clear" on what exactly is happening. I thought I understood this to mean the original version of Clear I paid for would now be universal and I see an iPad version but when I instal it on the Pad its still the blown up phone version...Way to go Clear! Confused...

I have avoided Clear due to the lack of sync between it and Apple's native Reminders. When you say "Reminders integration," is that what you mean? I checked their web site and it wasn't....ah...clear. Thanks.

Funny, because I said I initially had no problem with paying the extra $5 to upgrade to the universal iPad version and iOS 7 support.

But then they went back on the iOS 7 support. And now they are going back on the iPad support.

You wouldn't feel bamboozled at all? They essentially wrangled as much money as the could out of their loyal customers who were willing to pay for an upgrade, only to cave in to the whiners who were too cheap to support them by switching to Clear+ and give them the features for free.

do u have any idea about what we are talking about here?
clearly it's not about they charge for an upgrade if you read carefully.

i have never seen a company with such a poor marketing strategy. first you charge for an upgrade by removing the old version. and then you brought that old version back after a lot of complaint. and now they want to remove the new version and made the old version exactly the same as the new one. what HELL these people are thinking about?